Readers' comments

I find the Economist's article "Who is the "Squeezed Middle"?' very interesing.
British Labour leader Ed Miliband's description of core parameter of squeeze
motion for evaluating economic growth would prevail. Barak Obama's
economic tool of not "from top down but from the middle out" immediately
remind one of an erection but whether a rigid and static erection is sutainable
is open to question. British Prime Minister David Cameron's "strivers" is
so hotch potch that a straight faced interpretation of the slogan word would
leads to "achievers" and to hell with the obverse downtrodden.

Every country produces their model growth middler they deserve. They
constitute a curious concomitant of snake oil salesman and a cool cutomer,
a truly two-in-one.

For instance, Mao's "let a hundred flowers bloom" was a boom on 1984.
But Indian leadership was not far behind. From the Indian experience,
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's adoption of Russian brand of socialism
without its intrinsic benefit to the masses even in a nominal form, known
as a long winded "socialist pattern of society" was a great hoodwink.
Indira Gandhi incorporated it by the Indian Constitution's preamble
with additions of "socialist secular" (whatever that might mean) to the
democratic republic during the emergency imposed in June 1975. But she
also chose a crisp slogan "Garibi Hatao" (eliminate the poverty) for economic
growth with the poor lttle knowing that poverty removal is ever a pipe dream.
Thus the slogan of promised growth, a signal for pampering the rich at
the expense of poor, was a piece of smart doublespeak because they had
only their votes to contribute while the rich for whom the country has since been
systematically made to beholden, contributed to the political kitty in a mutual
give and take. This chicanery has been carried over to date.

All catch phrases are all imbued with the double entendres open as they are to alternate interpretations, political style. This often arises out of lack of need for making
a firm committment. Political obsession with the "middle" refers to much
more than the middle finger which some strata of society have the wherewithal
to show. And without the mass base of the poor and the downtrodden who are
getting less and less of not only political but also media attention over the years,
where would the support for the top and middle of the pyramid come from?
Often, the pyramid of economy and prosperity sustains itself like an iceberg
with one-eighth up and the rest floating on water like flotsam and jetsam.
When economic chips are down, the nether crust of the iceberg might even
rise upto 14/15. Hercules Chained is crucial for economic growth with the
middle finger out up.

"The deregulation of the mortgage market in America—which led to the growth of sub-prime debt that helped to create the conditions for the 2007-08 credit crunch and ensuing downturn—was a classic wheeze to make those on low incomes feel better off than they really were."

Depends what you mean. If you mean government policies to promote affordable housing, well, that's debatable to say the least. If you mean deregulation of financial markets, especially around mortgage asset-backed securities, well, that probably hits closer to the truth.

The article tell us the causes for the lack of middle class jobs globalisation, automation and outsourcing yet instead of looking at solution that address any of these issues, claims what is needed are people with more vocational/technical training??

The reason there is higher investment in vocational training in Germany and Sweden is because their governments have taken care of their industrial/tech sector, meaning there are jobs available to make the study worthwhile.

The UK/USA however has allowed free market policies to hollow their industrial/tech sector out. Already most UK STEM trained graduates do not end up in technical jobs but in the service sector because the supply of technical jobs is less than the number of people qualified.
Training up more people for non-existent roles is not the fix, a more pro-active approach to innovation and Industrial policy is needed.

In Economist terms to reduces growing inequality and fix the 'middle' UK/US Governments need step back from Friedman policies (that benefit mostly those in the financial sector) and think again about the ideas of Keynes.

Vocational and technical skills in Britain and America lag behind those in economies such as Germany and Sweden where, not coincidentally, the middle is looking rather less squeezed.
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We are paying the price for the (ideological) choice we made in the 1960s and 1970s, that college was the right choice for anybody and everybody. So we pushed kids towards that, and provided nothing for those whose talents did not lie in academic pursuits.
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So today, we have a lot of people who have nothing from their post-high school education/training but a pile of debt. They don't have the skills to do the working class jobs that are available. (And, all too often, would turn up their noses at doing such a thing anyway.) But they never were cut out for the kinds of high information, high tech jobs that a college degree might have some utility for.
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Someday, we will figure out that not everybody is suited for college, no matter how delightfully egalitarian it might be if they were. And then, we can start helping kids gain the skills to do the jobs that they are good at. It's only a question of how many years we will keep dmaging people's lives before we accept that reality.

I thought one of the big refreshes in technical school/vocational training was in the early 1960s (maybe the last one)? Coming on the heels of Sputnik, fear of decline, and folks being impressed with the Soviet Union nominally cranking out large numbers of engineers, scientists and mathematicians?
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I have met several people from that time who got their start in technical schools, in both high technology and in the nuclear industry. Now it seems once they knew what they wanted to do they (or most) went on to get four year degrees...

Sputnik led to a lot more attention to education. But it was most to increase the emphasis on science and, at the college level, engineering. See, for example, the "California Master Plan for Higher Education" from 1950.
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But attention to the kind of training that makes one a better mechanic or plumber? Not that I noticed at the time -- and I lived thru it as a school child.

Altogether, it looks like more than 1,000 workers will be pushed out of their jobs, losing generous salaries that will be nearly impossible to match elsewhere in the region. The McCracken County plant was one of the area's largest employees, and the average salary for plant workers, including benefits, was $125,000.

Barry King, a 56-year-old chemical operator at the plant, said he checked out a job fair recently. He left with a pile of brochures but no certain prospects. He said he might attend a technical college to get retrained.

(A little late in the ballgame. Speaking of which.)

"What hurts us most, we can survive because we're older, but our kids, they've set up this life working at this plant," Myers said. "They're not going to be able to maintain the life they've got when that plant goes away."

His son's 13-year-old daughter plays on a traveling softball team in hopes of landing an athletic scholarship to attend college. But the family's $400 to $500 weekend excursions to watch her play may come to an end if her father loses his job, Myers said.

"We feel like our life has gone down the toilet," he said.

(Because they can't spend $500/weekend instead of saving it?
I was lucky when my father had a day off from his 2nd job to watch me play LOCAL tee-ball/Little League.)

Very good point about spending that much money per weekend, hoping to get a college scholarship out of it. And that is only part of the money that goes into these competitive leagues. Amazing how few people see the irony in this -- this could be considered another form of playing the lottery in hopes of making a fortune.

Hate to be the one to break it to you (actually, I don't... ) but your continuous "it's their fault for not saving every penny and living the ascetic life." BS is just that, uninformed BS. Some people live beyond their means, as do people in *every* income bracket, but sterotyping them all as "keepin' up with the Jones'" is just ignorant.

And in this particular example, if he earns the average at the plant, $125k/year, then they were hardly living beyond their means.

What a cynical bunch of financial zealots. 'And that is only part of the money that goes into these competitive leagues.'

To vilify a grandfather for watching his grand-daughter play softball at away venues. If some of these critics had that level of familial support during their formative years, I reckon this world would now be a better place.

The 'missing generation', so to speak, are the ones to fix this dilemma. Grandparents are going to live-and-spend rather than bequeath, so the softballer's parents aren't going to get the inheritance they thought they would. They'll be safe when the Inheritance Tax comes as, in all certainty, it will.

Grandparents' generation was told to expect to retire into a life of leisure at 55YO, and to 'hand over the baton' for running the economy to the next generation. This they haven't done, so we keep looking to the 1920-30's for economic lessons, when we ought to look to 1970-80's for economic solutions; eg petro-dollars, demise of Bretton Woods institutions-and-thinking, tried-and-failed Friedman-esque shock tactics for national economies.

We have nanotechnologies, genetic engineering, etc but clearly don't know what to do with them. No point in asking the technologists. We asked IBM what the free-market sales volume would be for computers, and their estimate was ... one.

I think the "squeezed midddle "is bitter for several sound reasons addressed below.To begin with,the capitalist class are so greed that they pursue for the maximization profit by hook or by crook. what's more, income distribution is unjust ,worsening the disadvantage plight of the middle.Last but not the least,the middle have a multitude of debt for consumption.

Way to advertise how out of touch you are with the world most people live in. Between housing, food, daycare, etc most have nothing to cut back on. If only we could turn hedgefundguys into soylent green, we could at least feed people freely.

Way to advertise how out of touch you are with the world most people live in. Between housing, food, daycare, etc most have nothing to cut back on. If only we could turn hedgefundguys into soylent green, we could at least feed people freely.

Way to advertise how out of touch you are with the world most people live in. Between housing, food, daycare, etc most have nothing to cut back on. If only we could turn hedgefundguys into soylent green, we could at least feed people freely.

Really, you had to post 3 times? :-) While I agree that there definitely seems to be a "hollowing out" of the middle class, there is some truth to how much disposable income goes into "stuff" that people really don't need. In our defense, there are a lot of really slick snake oil peddlars out there still taking advantage of us.

I don't believe that either globalization or automation is responsible for the "squeezed middle." The greatest automation in the U.S. has been in agriculture, but the gains from that productivity increase were widely distributed. And globalization was associated with higher living standards after WWII.

I blame debt. Without debt for consumption, companies could not pay workers less and sell them more, and countries could not sell without buying (at least collectively) in return. It is debt that has allowed the middle class to shrink, and it is those same debts from past consumption that constitute a large share of the "wealth" of the wealthy -- not claims on assets that will produce income in the future.

Absent soaring U.S. debt some of the positive changes we have seen -- the growth of the middle class in places like China, and everyone in the U.S. getting Smartphone for example -- might have been slower. But they would have been more sustainable.

As it is, this false economy is being kept alive by Federal Reserve money printing and a huge federal budget deficit -- which it what it takes to get our lousy rather than a disastrous economy. Even as pundits talk about how younger generations -- who have "time to adjust" -- will have to lose old age benefits to pay for it all.

The squeezed middle is a product of three things. Falling wages. The advertising industry increasing the amount of goods and services that must be had if you are to consider yourself in the "middle." And the loss of public services and benefits, also due to past debts.

That leaves domestic workers unprotected, and less revenues for the Federal Gov't from income taxes of the workers and import taxes - leading to deficits - if said country expands the military in order to protect the export nations.

BILL MOYERS: You recently won a campaign for a living wage for hotel workers in Long Beach, $13 an hour. How did you do it?

MADELINE JANIS: So, Long Beach is the second largest city in L.A. County... ...But we decided to organize small businesses. So we went out and we organized 130 small businesses to be part of a “buy local” campaign.

BILL MOYERS: Why small businesses? You would think that they would say, "But if you raise wages for our workers, we're going to cut our profit margin."

MADELINE JANIS: I know that's what you would think...
...So our argument was, and the small business people made that argument themselves. They were strong advocates. "We want more customers. We want these hotel workers to be able to buy our clothes and our food." And so we had “buy local” signs everywhere. And then the most incredible thing was we won by 63percent.

And we kept seeing this, something that we thought was wrong. We had to be in an Alice in Wonderland story or something. We would see a Romney for President sign and a pro-Tea Party for Congress and Yes on the Living Wage, all on the same lawn.

To what extent is the disproportionate share of income and wealth enjoyed by the plutocrats at the top of the three the result of talent, ability and entreprise? The result of luck and good fortune - for example, being born in the right family and inheriting wealth? Or the result of rent-seeking and the abuse of political and economic power?

To what extent is this disproportionate share of income and wealth being amassed as a result of repressing the wages and salaries of this so-called 'squeezed middle'? Or are real wages falling due to competition from lower cost, more productive labour in other economies that is reducing demand in traditional employment sectors - and the main demand for labour is in lower-wage, lower productivity sectors?

These are, or, at least, should be, empirical questions. I suspect the answers are affirmatives to all of the above to varying extents. And, as a result, the policy solutions must be multi-focused. It is not enough to focus on the supply-side, as those on the right instinctively do - even if it is important. The promotion and effective governance of genuinely competitive markets that banish market and political meddling and minimise rent-seeking is equally important. And some measure of tax-based redistribution cannot be avoided - particularly in relation to inheritance taxes.

Unfortunately this is a policy mix that will upset equally those on the right and those on the left. And, with the usual configuration of the competing political blocs in most advanced economies, there is a minimal possibility that this required policy mix will be formulated, enacted and implemented.

Germany and the Scandinavian economies come closest to providing the exceptions that prove the rule - but all have their own idiosyncratic structural deficiencies. Elsewhere the usual shouting matches between the left and right and the inevitable futile, half-arsed policy initiatives prevail.

Nowhere is the middle class being squeezed more than in America. It seems to have become policy in the US to take from the middle class by printing money and handing out to failing banks, the rich and businesses.
Middel class has lost puchasing power continuously since 2007.

All the middle-class has to do is stop playing "keeping up with the Jones'" and live within their means, maybe invest some time and money into night school to acquire new skills in order to climb the ladder.

But that's harder than watching "reality" shows on a 55" TV - through a pay service of course.

Thats a symptom across the west. It is more attractive to have jobs in non-contributing work, that actually just "siphon/steal" value from the ones who actually produce, than have a job where you actually contribute to society.

Better to be a financial wizard as you say, then to be an engineer or teacher.

The answer is obviously some form of vocational training, intended primarily for domestic production or trade balance. The modern middle class of Germany and Sweden were built on productivity entitlements. The post-WWII middle-class in the US was built on middle class productivity entitlements.

In the US, we've probably never been farther away from the idea of middle class entitlements. In previous generations, the middle-class received benefits primarily via the military, which provided GI bill, healthcare, dental, pension, disability, etc. The military also trained tens of thousands of doctors, nurses, engineers, heavy equipment operators, and so on. Supplementary programs in agriculture and infrastructure trained farmers and construction workers/foreman/contractors. NASA was the technological crown-jewel for training high technology personnel.

All of those programs have been gutted (%GDP) and turned into one of the most onerous public healthcare systems on earth. A program so putrid it can't keep pace with Western European health metrics, though US governments and private insurers spend 200%-300% more per capita than Europe. The solution, according to President Obama, is to levee a tax (individual mandate) on the beleaguered middle class, though many young middle-class individuals will probably not need health services.

We pay for Medicare of the elderly. We pay for Medicaid for the poor. If I promise to be a good little American and buy health insurance for a 3rd time, then the government will let me have it. Right. The only thing I can count on is higher middle class taxes and lower middle class benefits, and a bunch of class warfare rabble-rousers who punish the middle class for the perceived sins of America's plutocrats.

'The answer is obviously some form of vocational training.' JC arrived at the same wrong answer so, whilst it might be obvious to some, it is obviously wrong to others.

There is increasing research into the damage being done by overskilling our workforce, like having MBA-qualified economists doing the work that was done by finance clerks in earlier eras. Many in the middle fall into this category. When unemployed, they apply for the wrong types of jobs, and wonder why they are unsuccessful. They often stay in poorly-suiting jobs out of fear they are over-qualified to do the jobs that are within their capabilities. Additional traning, or even retraining, is not the answer for them because the training experience has generated most of their dissatisfaction.

Equally so, those employed in 'shadow economies'. Where non-banks are doing banking functions because lax regulators haven't closed them down - yet - but may do so anytime soon. These businesses doing gain any long-term capital investment becauuse their future is so insecure; ie in the shadows.

In both cases, a less-obvious answer is 'to stick to the knitting'. IMHO, it is more correct than the prescription from J.C.

I said Obamacare was President Obama's proposed solution to the pre-existing problem. Unfortunately, President Obama's "solution" follows the same destructive pattern as every other liberal initiative by placing new taxes on the American middle class and pouring more money into unproductive entitlement programs. This has been the regulatory status quo since the late-60s.

The solution to under-utilized workers, burdened unnecessarily by onerous employment regulations, is to dumb-down the workforce? That is the correct answer?

I'm stunned you could prescribe such measures without any shame, and I'm surprised you would prefer the de-skilling and dumbing-down of the labor force to promoting a more robust labor market. Maybe if we had full employment and rising labor force participation, perhaps you might have a point.

2nd attempt at the answer. 'The solution to under-utilized workers, burdened unnecessarily by onerous employment regulations, is to dumb-down the workforce? That is the correct answer?'
Sadly, no. Perhaps J.C. could supply the correct answer.
Hint: Dissatified MBAs sitting glued to their trading screens, developing new types of 'scamming algorithms' that finance clerks used to do in the 70-80's is not the right answer.
Nor finance/economists in the shadow-banking sector, deprived of capital investment by titchy owners who are dodging SEC investigators or District Attorneys. Any normal person can only put up with so much work-related stress brought on by the fear of redundancy/(in)voluntary retirement. Get a job in the real economy.

"So what is to be done about the squeezed middle?" Let's start with a HOMEMAKER ALLOWANCE... and a policy of one good job per household... i.e living wages for breadwinners and part-time work for homemakers... So couples can manage on one, or one-and-half incomes... Link family benefits to the homemaker allowance, so working couples are cut off from state subsidies... Subsidise single-income couples who are trying to provide good homes for the next generation
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Next question

Single-income couples are perhaps the least effective way to raise children. Let's say that all families have two children. This means that during the day one person takes care of two children (when they are not in school). I would say that one adult could easily raise three or four children as well, as long as the children aren't toddlers.

Another point is that this model would inevitably lead to more and more women staying at home. I would prefer that girls would have independent, strong women role models that are not dependent on their husbands handouts. The role models do not have to be their mothers as every family's situation is different but in general the sentiment in society should be that women work as well and as much as men do.

Yes! fiat justitia... "This model would inevitably lead to more and more women staying at home"... because that is what women want
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Women don't want full-time jobs... They only take full-time work out of financial necessity... So relieve them of the necessity!... The idea that women can have satisfactory homes PLUS satisfactory careers is a girlie delusion, catered to by juveniles in the media... Women know they have to make a choice... And most women would rather be homemakers with perhaps part-time jobs given the choice... There's only one way to find out
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It is corporate policy to exploit women for their labour potential

And Ebdebebbede... You are right... We are all in it together... And a homemaker allowance is as relevant to China and Chad as America and England
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Which is the more efficient?.. Men and women (and children) fighting over the few good jobs available... some households with several jobs, others with none... high house prices, low real wages, and massive debt... Or men prioritised for the frontline work with women back in support
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A pool of housewives available for part-time work with no benefits would provide the economy with a low-cost labour base with no immoral exploitation... Their benefits would be covered by their breadwinner/husbands
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We are agreed however that single-income households are the way to go... if only, like Saudi Arabia, we can afford them

"The deregulation of the mortgage market in America—which led to the growth of sub-prime debt that helped to create the conditions for the 2007-08 credit crunch and ensuing downturn—was a classic wheeze to make those on low incomes feel better off than they really were."
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I believe generating financial products that yield higher returns was a key reason for the scope of the disaster that befell the subprime market.
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Now, the government not enforcing any standards and being lax about predatory lending and misrepresentation of contracts could be construed as a form of deregulation (as in informally conceding not to regulate). Actually it may be the case that Mr. Greenspan purposely indicated a preference for that sort of informal deregulation.

Now, the government not enforcing any standards and being lax about predatory lending and misrepresentation of contracts could be construed as a form of deregulation

But no one stuck a gun to the borrowers' heads and forced them to take out a loan at 125% of the inflated value of the home, or low interest rate for 2-3 years with a high interest non-refinanceable balloon payment.
Or not being allowed to pay down the principle faster (like that ever entered the borrowers' minds).

Many of the borrowers, the lenders, and the MBS bond buyers were gaming the system.

I was receiving weekly mailings from fly-by-night mortgage companies trying to con me into re-financing to spend during the bubble.
But I saw what was going on, just by looking at the new arrivals in the neighborhood.

Just because there's a bar at the corner of my street doesn't allow me to justify becoming an alcoholic.

How much misrepresentation occurred with underwriting mortgages though, by the issuers of the mortgages?
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What percentage of subprime mortgages should have been Alt A; and what percentage of Alt A should have been a higher grade mortgage?
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What percentage of mortgages failed to conform to regulations of the day outright?
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As to the credit crunch and financial debacle, how much active, premeditated misrepresentation occurred in securitization, and in distorting the ratings of instruments?
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Interestingly, the reasonable economic health of the north/central European countries confirms that Socialism does a lot better than unregulated capitalism. Alas, that fact is lost on most brainwashed Americans, who would not understand that Socialism as practised in Europe is tamed Capitalism.

Someone should send you and your fellow socialists back to economics class. Maybe that could be our new 'vocational' training. The United States, even adjusted for PPP, has a much higher per capita GDP than every Scandinavian country except oil-wealthy Norway. The wealth that our richest people possess isn't some adjustable share of a fixed national pie. It is created new wealth, that wouldn't exist without the efforts of those people. We're talking about heavy-hitters at Google, Apple, and Facebook, for example. We're also talking about fracking entrepreneurs, surgeons, even small business people.
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We should discourage wealth creation just because it's not going to the kind of people that you would like it to. We're in a new globalized economy, and wages are going to follow their own logic. Attempting to fight it is only going to make things worse, as we see in countries like France and Spain.

I am sure the millions of poor who actually do all the work creating the goods and services that make their owners rich sympathize. Yes, the guy making 7$ an hour at Walmart thinks, those Swedes have a lower per capita GDP than us! Take that! Nevermind their safety net and better standards of living on just about every metric imaginable, especially for someone below the poverty line.

The Wal-Mart heirs have more wealth than the bottom 120 million Americans. Surely that is because each of those "heavy hitters" can work 20 million times as hard as a poor person, right? Or maybe they're 20 million times as educated? As skilled? As lucky?

Or maybe the whole damn system is rotten to the core. That's the only reasonable solution to take here. Nobody wants a completely equal society - there should be relatively richer and poorer to reflect different abilities and efforts, but this inequality is out of control. Occupy Wall Street didn't form up because people are lazy, and judging by the reactions of the police and the politicians who were terrified enough to rush to stamp it out, its message struck a chord with people.

If you come down from your ivory tower, you can read our federal budget, and you'll see why Americans have lost faith in socialism. In the USA, the "socialists" have simply stripped away middle class productivity entitlements and promised them to other demographics. If that weren't disheartening enough, they've been raising employment taxes which has put many of us in debt and out of work. Naturally, this has lead to trickle-up poverty, a phenomenon they refuse to acknowledge, even at our present juncture. This is actually the second time we've reached this state since adopting "socialism". Stagflation was the first.

Americans don't have a populist socialist movement b/c we have no socialists. We have a group of moral philosophers who never let a good "social injustice" get in the way of macro-economic data or constitutional concerns. Another group of "socialists" are actually middle-class capitalist laborers who hate the labor market and who believe extortion is a legitimate means of raising wages.

The issue is that too little of the proceeds of these entrepreneurial activities is flowing down to those doing the actual work. Hats off to Steve Jobs et al, but honestly one would think they were working alone from your comment!

Wealth creation is great. Spreading it around more widely increases the capacity of the economy to grow through the current consumption paradigm. Less spreading around = less consumption = less long-term growth of wealth. Arguably every crash results from too much of the economic activity concentrated in too few hands.

I've figured that a very steeply progressive estate tax would do wonders in places like America, but methods would probably be found to avoid it. Even if you exempted the first $500,000 or so (a fair amount IMO), you'd have Republicans convincing say, dock workers and miners that the government was going to punish them for dying with the "death tax", and Democrats deciding their campaign contributions depend on them not really pushing the idea anyway.

A Georgist land tax might help too, or some sort of geolibertarian system. That would have the advantage of fighting urban sprawl and we'd see less Queens of Versailles. But political opposition to that too right now would be insurmountable without some sort of popular uprising.

It's not so much "socialism" as much as the fact that countries like Germany and Sweden have "consensus" economic models that involve negotiations and tradeoffs by the government, capital and labor (take a look at VW to see how this plays out). That and cultures that tend to place a high value on professionalism, relative honesty, and efficiency. Not to mention cultural fears of inflation and industrial policies that aim for huge export surpluses.

It's less political ideology than culture. Even if you somehow managed to drop the whole German package into an Anglo-Saxon country, I don't think it would work: the politics alone is too zero-sum.

For example: German health insurance (the oldest such social system in the world) manages to accommodate public and private options, a two tier system, management at different federal levels, price controls and pretty good outputs. There are gripes, and reforms are needed, but the system overall seems to work quite well. At the same time, I don't see such a system ever being agreed or successfully managed to in the US.

Please tone down. This is what I tend to hear in the US, when Americans look down their nose and talk about Europe. Not one country in Europe practices "socialism".

What we have in Europe is capitalism, even in ex-USSR countries, just as in the US. The difference is that Europeans have more trust in the Government, and less trust in markets (more regulation); while Americans distrust the Government, and have faith in the markets (less regulation). That's no good reason to call European countries socialist, or imply that they have Socialist economies.

I fully agree with you, especially with your contention that it takes more than politics to create reasonably decent/honest political systems. The Nordic and central European countries seem to have managed that pretty demanding feat at least to some degree.

As to health care and other long overdue social advances, Americans haven't got a hope to get anywhere near that goal. To get anything like a cost effective and decently working universal healthcare system implemented requires an educated population, compassion, honesty and common sense. Obama certainly tried, but that feat takes a hell of a lot more than a willing president.
To get it through both houses and past many voters, he had to compromise and finished up with a hybrid that still incorporates the worst aspects of private and public health care. The sad fact in this saga, the people needing it most are often their worst enemies.

Thank you, no need for a lecture. Most European countries have like America two main parties and some lesser ones. Of the main parties one is as a rule pro capitalist in brackets, the other socialist.
Both parties have accepted that fact and stay as a rule within the parameters that both can accept and live with. You can call that an intelligent compromise.

Hardly - the inequity arises from prior changes in legal/economic/financial practices; the rules of the game corrupted to enrich a corrupt-(relatively)few. Changing those rules and practices in a manner that promotes a better outcome is the remedy for that. Such changes are no longer possible under the political processes that are in place; think - 'Citizens United'. Something extra-legal is the only practical path to take when confronted by a corrupted legal/political system.

Don't get me wrong - this is a drastic approach to advocate. IMO things have to be widely seen to be rather more blatantly and intolerably corrupt than too many still presently view them. IMO no genuine progress is possible until that happens.

Not realistic to presume that those who benefit from the status quo will surrender that privileged position except at gun-point, or something akin to that.

Unfortunately for you, those of us that believe in capitalism own far more guns per capita. So no, you cannot have my money, and you cannot steer our country into a socialist direction by force. I don't know why you'd even want to, given recent success of the left electorally. You should also witness Syria, and to a lesser extent Egypt, and see the hell that can be unleashed by civil war. Why you'd want that in the United States, just because fry cooks aren't being paid as much as you'd like, boggles my mind.

If you want a quick and easy way to level the economic playing field, I'd like to point out to you that the wealthiest counties in America are the ones right outside of Washington DC. Where highly paid government employees, contractors, and lobbyists live. If you cut the size of our government, you can eliminate tens of thousands of jobs of artificially high salary.

I think the answer to red in tooth and claw capitalism is not red in tooth and claw anarchy. After all, that means the wealth (most of which having no physical basis in this universe) would just dissipate and we'd all be worse off.

Serious reform is necessary, though, and a serious movement to demand results. You're right that people still have shreds of the safety net to cling on to yet, but the politicians and plutocrats are working on throwing them off as fast as they can. Then maybe we'll see Occupy Round 2, and it will probably and unfortunately involve more than just tents.

I have a better idea. Since nearly everyone in the financial sector seems completely incompetent (e.g, destroying the economy five years ago on absurdly bad gambles, outright fraud, assigning themselves multi-million dollar bonuses after all this, etc), maybe we should fire them all instead and hire some capable young MBAs from Africa & India to run the place.

Then we can enact the Cayman Islands Tax to take back some of the estimated 20-30 trillion dollars that's hiding out there away from the taxman.

CEO to average worker pay in 1970 was about 50 to 1. Now it's about 350 to 1. Care to explain how that happened? I don't see any executive productivity or managerial efficiency increases, or sevenfold increases in ROI...

Anarchy is certainly not a solution to much of anything. That said, a period of ... umm ... 'revolutionary turmoil' is IMO an inescapable prerequisite to meaningful progress - OWS and TEA gave us the faintest previews of it; like Harper's Ferry gave a preview of what was to come. Bringing that about is step number 1 - step number 2 is doing the right thing when the opportunity presents.

It's not a left or right or capitalist/socialist divide - it's displacing a corrupted, Mafia-owned regime with something else. Not having a dog in that fight, I'm content to leave it to the general population to decide what alternative is best. For sure IMO, nothing will be worth the effort unless it takes dead-aim at folks in DC and NYC.

Is 'not having a dog in that fight' the same as 'not having skin in the game'? The thing is, we all have skin in the shrinking-middle game, except for the Top-1%.

Amongst the upper classes, there is often the dread they will drop a few rungs, for example, if you work for hedge funds like Cohen's SAC or for Lehman Bros. ie your game is up, the creditors foreclose, assets are liquidated. Normally involves moving house, and can be caused by divorce-court cleaners.

Amongst the working class, there is always a portion who are aspirational, who may/may not want their children to have better than they have. Often hold down multiple jobs, with a leading indicator being the calibre of private school their children attend.

The middle's shrinking characteristic is due to the wealthy gaining an upperhand in gaming a corrupt system, and staying out of the middle. Also, when aspirationals continually receive knock-backs, no longer subscribing to the 'American Dream' but accepting their lot in life, and handouts in any form.

Now, how to reverse this trend, or to deal with the collateral damage?

Yes, 'you' who live in the States have to correct the situation - or accept the continuing consequences of not doing so. Not bein' a US resident, 'you' doesn't include me or my dog.
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OBTW - the top 1% certainly do have a dog in the fight - the biggest, most vicious dog there ever was. Gonna have to kill that critter straight out of the gate.

But, Reynard, I probably live down the street from you. I also am non-US resident but the 'shrinking middle' is a global institution.

Now that Obama, Cameron, Harper, Merkel are going to St Petersburg for their annual G20 conflab in a fortnight, could be something they get their teeth into.

To steer them in the right direction, civil society advising the G20 (C20) has produced a nice little reader 'Civil20 Proposals for Strong, Sustainable, Balanced and Inclusive Growth'.

Ntw if you're from China, France, India, Korea, etc because there's a chapter for your country too.
I'm suggesting you muzzle the Rottweiler as the Germans/Russians propose different solutions for their 'shrinking middle classes'.

The "middle" is also a good catch-all phrase that virtually everyone considers themselves to be part of (self assessment tends to regress to the mean in these issues) and so working to "help the middle" is a great political phrase that sounds to each individual voter like it means the politician is looking out for that voter's own interest - be she/he rich or poor.

There is no such thing as a rich working man. If a majority of individual income and wealth is from earned income, you're middle class bourgeoisie. Doesn't matter if you're a bank teller or a pro athlete. Doesn't matter if you live in an apartment or a mansion. If your asset base was built with sweat equity, you're in the middle.

The rich are the gilded asset class who grow their fortunes with capital gains and unearned incomes. The poor are the people who produce little to nothing but who receive entitlements for humanitarian reasons. Retirees are their own class of people, as well. Unearned income but declining wealth, generally.

I think you are confused between "rich" and "capitalist", "poor" and "wage-slave".

I am much richer than my wife, but am a wage-slave working in venture capital.

Her web-business, run part-time from home, ticks over quite nicely when she is asleep or on holiday. It only bring is c. the national average income, but she is none-the-less a capitalist rather than a wage=slave.

Really, unregulated capitalism destroys the power of labour and exacerbates income inequality and economic immobility? But I've heard it's just so fair a process!

Then we get to free trade. As the thriving doctor and lawyer guilds and destroyed manufacturer unions in America attest to, these are primarily exercises in exposing the middle and working classes to competition with the lowest paid workers in the world while protecting the rich professionals from anything resembling foreign challenge.

This is an absurdly unsustainable situation. To point out places like Scandinavia (rather socialist by comparison) are doing better really provides the answer to the problem.

They're doing better on every metric that counts. There really is more to life than money, you know. Unfortunately the diehard capitalists seem to espouse a 1 to 1 correspondence between cash and everything that makes one human. I pity them.

Go check the HPI (Happy Planet Index) and HDI (Human Development Index) if you want to see who is really "better off". Equating 'improvements' or 'superior life' to income after tax or whatever monetary indicator is like comparing apples and oranges. Please, go educate yourself. I suggest you start with watching a bit more TED talks....

Lawyers are not doing well at all - at least not anyone who got into the profession since the year 2000. Law school is way too expensive for the vast majority of grads to ever pay back their loans. Most observers agree that industry is collapsing (or at least undergoing a drastic change).